We woke up today to hear a lawnmower, followed by the Voice’s distinct timbre saying ‘I am German. I work while the world sleeps.’

Rolling out of our tent, we found him covered in wet grass cuttings at the Cookie Lady’s house, having just mowed their lawn for them. It was quite a way to come back to consciousness. The couple had left us some hardboiled eggs and we had a good breakfast before we started out on the trail for Dalton. It was a good hike over more of Mass’ beautiful rolling terrain to get there. When we did hike into town victorious, a resident trail angel gave us a ride to the Old Country Buffet, where we were disgusting.

Fortified with many thousands of calories, we hiked on the next nine miles to Cheshire with Zeke, our newest section hiker friend. In Cheshire, the kindest man we’ve ever met let us into the church there to sleep. We fell asleep on the floor of a giant chamber room encircled with Christmas lights while rain fell on the roof.